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New TLDs Loaded with Fraudulent Registrations
Dan Tobias and others wrote in about the disaster unfolding during the new registrations of .biz and .info domains. Both TLD's are - by mandate of ICANN - employing sunrise registrations where trademark holders can pre-register or reserve domain names that coincide with their trademarks. However, neither registry plans to check the validity of the asserted trademarks. Guess what? Most of the reservations in .info thus far appear to involve fictional trademark claims on highly generic words - I checked ten common words for trademark validity and was able to verify two and confirm that seven were completely invalid (.biz is doing things slightly differently, and will probably have fewer problems). The challenge process costs $300, so it's doubtful that most bogus registrations of non-trademarks will ever be challenged - register yours today, or just amuse yourself by checking common names. As usual, I should point out that if the root were run properly, allowing any TLD to be added, this squabbling over an artificially-limited resource would be eliminated.
The most valuable commodity I know of is information. - Michael Douglas as Gordon Gekko, Wall Street
When companies shell out hard cash (business.com sold for $3.2 million) for a domain someone else got for $30, what do you expect? With this knowledge, if you could get your hands on business.biz for $30, wouldn't you bite? I sure as hell would. Someone will pay at least a few hundred grand for it...
-Ryan, with the unoriginal sig
If the root were completely open, then they would just squabble over who has the trademark rights for gTLDs rather than second level domains. You're only substituting one limited resource for another...
Perhaps the reason we have so much trouble with domain names is that we have the wrong economic metaphor (or none at all). Why not treat domain names as real estate? If you're the first to stake a claim to coke.biz, congratulations. Coke can get into a bidding war with Pepsi to buy it. Same as if you were the first to stake a claim to a piece of swamp loaded with oil, or whatever. OTOH, if you use coke.biz to put up a site that is confusingly similar to the Coke website, then and only then could you be sued for trademark infringement.
This whole WIPO/ICANN deal doesn't seem so hot. Time for something new?
Alternatively, I do like the idea of opening the TLDs to everyone, but it might get confusing for Lusers ("coke.biz? Don't you mean coke.biz.com? Argh! I'll just go back to AOL...")
It's fraudulent because not just anybody can beat people to the punch and register the one they want. As the story says, the 'sunrise' period is for Trademark holders only. The problem is that trademark holders are having a field day registering whatever the hell they want, based on what is likely to get a lot of hits, and not on what their trademarks are. So people like you and me are going to sit and wait, while people at Dupont register science.info, etc.
It is becomming increasingly apparent to me that as we move from a scarcity economy to one of abundance, attention is shifting from control of scarce resources to control of the means of creating scarcity.
In other words, in an abundance economy, the only thing that is scarce is scarcity itself.
Therefore, ICANN can be viewed as nothing more than a tool for manufacturing and maintaining scarcity, and after that scarcity has been created, a tool for controlling it.
The real Webmaven is user ID 27463. I don't rate an imposter, because my ID is such a lame-ass high number.
1. I just posted elsewhere on this.... basically, as michael says, any TLD could be *added*, but that doesn't mean any one group could *have* that TLD. (Anyone could create second-level domains within any TLD.)
2. On the contrary -- it would spread the load more evenly. Each TLD would get its own set of servers. It's a hierarchical system and this is exactly the kind of scaling that would be no problem.
This sounds like a recipe for mass confusion to me. Let me see, is that web site I want to go to called:
The result would be that anyone trying to maintain any kind of brand identity (or just prevent porn sites from snapping up similar names) would have to employ a full time person just to continually register names. Sounds like a jobs program combined with a revenue creation mechanizm for the name registrars. The lawyers would like it too - lots of new opportunities for copyright infringement lawsuits.
** The opinions expressed here are my own, and do not reflect those of my employers - past, present, or future**
Why bother with TLDs anyway? These days the big companies just register them all.
If Microsoft registers microsoft.com, microsoft.biz, and microsoft.info, how is that any better than if we had just one TLD called microsoft.com? The more TLDs you add, the more they'll buy. Only the registrars win.
However, I also don't agree with sideline punditry, which has reached epidemic proportions amongst the editorial crew of Slashdot.
Hey, guess what? Slashdot is and always has been an exercise in sideline punditry. That's what it's for.
That said:
1. Copyright has nothing to do with it. The issues relate to trademarks.
2. The people "out there" aren't finding a better way. They're not interested in that. They're trying to find a way that makes big-money corporate interests happy. That the proposed "solutions" are failing at that is sort of amusing.
This is all so bogus. If all the trademark owners who already have .com domains grab all the .biz domains, then A) what's the point of .biz? and B) what's the problem with .com?
It's all just a scam to sell virtual addresses to people who don't understand the internet. Really, if someone clicks on Slashdot do they really care if the link takes them to "slashdot.org" or "slashdot.com" or "slashdot.biz" or "www.reallycoolwebhost.com/slashdot"? As long as some plug-in doesn't redirect them here, what's the problem? I.e., what's the need for .biz?
If all this should have a reason, we would be the last to know.
The United States Government offered land lotteries, where interested parties obtained land for free, based on a first come, first serve basis. Fair and agreeable terms were initiated, and the squabbles were quite a bit less than the domain squabbles that exist today.
The same lottery should exist today. I rarely sponsor government interference in ANYTHING, but this seems an applicable reason for government: to protect private property 'squatters' from getting a ride they didn't wait for like everyone else. Domain names should be free and first come, first serve. If I want ford.biz, and ford hasn't asked for it, then I get it. Companies need to get over this "company misrepresentation" crap. And the government should give away the domains for free, not form some 'good ole boy' network like the FCC is.
Reason, free market capitalism, and individualism
As usual, I should point out that if the root were run properly, allowing any TLD to be added, this squabbling over an artificially-limited resource would be eliminated.
You know, that's a myth. If you eliminate the TLD's, you just move the squabbling one up in the hierarchy.
People really don't understand how the process that the Internet is going through with regards to new TLD additions. This is a TESTBED phase - the whole concept being that they try adding several new tlds with varied scope and purposes to see what the implications and results are. This is the same process that was done when Network Solutions was the only domain name registrar. 5 testbed registrars were chosen to see what would happen when the market was opened to competition - one year later, the market was opened up as a whole and today there are several hundred accredited registrars, and one of the top 3 registrars (Tucows/OpenSRS) was not even one of the testbed registrars.
.com. Come and get 'em
The reason the testbed phase is important is because of exactly the reasons people are complaining about the new TLDs. Now that people have noticed that there's a problem with trademark holder verification, perhaps when the process is opened up (which ICANN has said it will, assuming the testbed phase works) that will be remedied. You have to look at this as a feasibility experiment. Look at the new TLDs:
-.pro - restricted use, but unique in that it provides identity/professional proof of id (for lawyers, etc)
-.info - unrestricted tld, just like
-.biz - for businesses only, iirc. Semi-restricted TLD
-.museum - very specific restricted TLD
-.coop - for non-profits, etc.
This is a textbook example of what should do for a feasibility study - select examples of each type and put them into production. See what happens. Make note of what works and what doesn't and use that to formulate an overall policy.
The idea that ICANN is somehow for limiting the number of TLDs is ludicrous - everyone, from the internet populace at large up to domain name registrars, want new top-level domain names. Everyone would win. But ICANN cannot simply open up the field without understanding and learning about what the implications are. People are looking almost entirely at the technical issues with adding new TLDs, while completely ignoring policy and procedural issues. Issues like false trademark submissions only prove how necessary this process is.
Thanks,
me@mzi.to
If people are going to be turning to .info to find out actual information about companies and services, shouldn't those companies be excluded from registering that name? In fact, isn't it our moral imperative to register microsoft.info to let people know the actual information about shoddy software and trust violations? I personally see this registering of other companies trademarks as the exact sort of thing which should be encouraged (except for squatting purposes).
If aolsucks.com violates some sort of trademark law against saying anything that could possibly reduce the stock options of the directors, wouldn't a reasoned aol.info site with reasoned news about system outages, social acceptability, and technology lockdowns pass a legal test?
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